


The Discovery Obstacle

by MeganWrites



Series: Rod of Asclepius [3]
Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Hospital, Homophobic Language, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-29
Updated: 2014-10-29
Packaged: 2018-02-23 02:49:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,591
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2531327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MeganWrites/pseuds/MeganWrites
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"It’s a nice enough day out, so when Mickey walked in on Ian about to go down to the cafeteria for lunch and told him (Mickey never asked him anything) they were going to Tommy’s to grab a dog, Ian grabbed his jacket in an instance."</p><p>Ian is a nervous medical intern, Mickey is a grumpy nurse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Discovery Obstacle

**Author's Note:**

> I just finished writing this and did some light editing.... if there are any glaring errors, I will get there but right now I am sleeeepy.
> 
> Warning for some homophibic slurs, and homophobia.

Ian naturally has longer strides than Mickey. He tries to take small steps to accommodate the shorter man, but it only serves to make him look a little awkward and Mickey gives him a weird look the rest of their walk to the nearby hot dog stand. It’s a nice enough day out, so when Mickey walked in on Ian about to go down to the cafeteria for lunch and told him (Mickey never asked him anything) they were going to Tommy’s to grab a dog, Ian grabbed his jacket in an instance.

Also he’s a little crazily infatuated with Mickey, so that might have helped make the decision easier.

They talk about stupid stuff the whole walk. Ian tells Mickey about how Debbie’s birthday is coming up and he has no idea what she might want. Mickey tosses out a couple ideas for things he had given to his little sister for her birthday before, as it turns out Mickey’s sister doesn’t sound like she has much in common with Debbie.

They reach Tommy’s and Mickey pays for both hot dogs. Ian tries his best to ignore the warm tingling sensation in his chest at the small action. Realistically, he knows it’s just something co-workers do for each other on occasion, but he can’t help how he feels. The heart is rarely rational, after all.

Mickey sets out walking again, Ian falls into step beside him, staring at his feet and trying to keep at the slightly slower than comfortable pace. They’ve barely made it across the street when someone bumps into Ian roughly. His left shoulder knocks back and he stumbles a bit on the spot, blinking rapidly and letting his mind focus on what’s just happened.

“What the fuck’s your problem?!” Mickey bellows, waving a hand in the air and scowling, “Watch where you’re fuckin' stepping!”

The guy turns around and yells out, “Asshole!”

Mickey’s eyebrows shoot up, “the fuck he just say?” He asks Ian and looks back at the guy and sees that he’s taken off, jogging around the corner and leaving their line of sight. “Too many fuckin' dicks in this city. If he ends up at the hospital he better fuckin' pray someone else is helping him.”

Ian chuckles, partially because he knows Mickey’s threats are empty, and partially because he thinks maybe Mickey’s overreacting a little.

He turns to Ian and gives him a quick scan, “I take it you're good then, Giggles.”

“Yeah Mick, I’m fine.”

Mickey sniffs harshly, looking away from Ian, “Good.”

Ian grins as he watches Mickey start walking again. He’s probably reading too much into the moment again, but Mickey seems oddly protective of him and Ian’s pretty sure it’s one of the most endearing things he’s ever seen.

 

-

 

Mickey tilts his head up and points to a thin white scar under his chin. “Jumping off the roof when I was ten.”

Ian snorts, “Jumping off the roof?”

“Yeah,” Mickey answers and leans back, “in the winter you just pile up a shit ton of snow and jump into it, usually it’s just fuckin' fun.”

“But that time it wasn’t?” Ian prompts and laughs when Mickey shrugs.

“I hit a rock or something, didn’t hurt too bad though, just dumped some vodka on it and Colin stitched it up.” Mickey takes a long gulp from his water bottle and leans back in one of the shitty plastic chairs in the staff lounge. “’Aight Gallagher, you’re up. Or did I finally beat you?” Mickey waggles his eyebrows and grins.

Ian laughs loudly and shakes his head, “you wish Milkovich.” He pulls up the pant leg on his scrubs and points at a large scar going along his calf. “Sixteen, jumping over a fence running from security after Lip and I stole a laser.”

“You stole a laser?” Mickey huffs out a laugh and almost looks impressed.

Ian nods and smiles, “didn’t even notice I was bleeding until I got home and saw all the blood on my pants.”

“Shit man, the neighbour lady stitch you up again?”

“Always did.”

Mickey snickers, “Pussy, didn’t even do it yourself.”

“Yeah, yeah. Not all of us can be as ghetto as you,” Ian answers with an eye roll and playfully shoves Mickey’s arm. He catches Mickey grinning and biting on his lip, Ian pauses for a moment just to watch Mickey looking so content and happy. It’s beautiful and Ian feels he could get addicted to seeing that smile.

He swallows and he breathes in, “Your turn.”

 

-

 

Filling out paperwork might be Ian’s least favorite part of the job. He’s always preferred to be moving and actively doing something (part of the reason he was so interested in the army), paperwork feels stagnant. He groans loudly, standing at the Nurse’s desk and drops his head down to rest on the paper. He stays like that until he feels and strong poke in his side.

He shoots up, standing straight and sees Mickey walking past saying, “your back’s gonna be sore as fuck if you sleep there.”

Ian half-smiles and watches until Mickey is around the corner before turning back to his paperwork. It only takes a couple of seconds for him to notice the head nurse, Dana, is watching him with a smug smile.

“What?” Ian asks, eyes shifting around the room suspiciously.

She saunters over to where Ian is standing and leans on the desk next to him. “Somebody's got a crush,” she hums.

Ian shakes his head quickly, “Me? On Mickey? No way – nope.” He denies it vehemently, wary that anything he says might have its way of making it back to Mickey, but notices the skeptical look on Dana’s face and realizes that his denial may have had the opposite effect.

“Sure,” Dana says after a long gap of silence, she rolls her eyes and crosses her arms. “You know, he’s been working here just over five years now and I’ve never seen him get along with any doctor or intern.”

“Really?” Ian asks, looking down at her with what he is sure are eyes filled with child-like hope. He kind of feels like an idiot for it, but he can’t seem to stop himself from being so dopey when thinking about Mickey.

Dana laughs and nods, “always wants to do things his own way, avoids the doctors until it becomes absolutely necessary. Calls all of you a bunch of pretentious assholes.”

Ian knew that part. Mickey always likes to mutter rude things about Ian’s attending Doctor Samuels, calling him every, and any, foul name he can think of.

“I get complaints about him all the time for the shit he pulls with these doctors,” Dana continues and sighs, “I swear, if he wasn’t so damn good at his job he wouldn’t be here. But he is, you know, he’s great at this job. He’s smarter than half these doctors anyways, knows the patients better, and stays until he’s sure the whole job is done – even if his shifts ended and he’s not getting paid for it.” She smiles and looks down at Ian, “he’s the most dedicated nurse I’ve ever met.”

She’s right, Ian’s seen it a hundred times over. Mickey complains about work more than anybody Ian’s ever met, but it’s mostly just about the Doctor’s. When it comes to the actual healing part of the job Mickey dives right in. He loves it, loves being able to send people away just a little better off than they came in – and even if he looks grumpy when he’s doing it Ian can always see the little sparkle in his eyes as he sends someone out the doors all fixed up. He is smart too, he corrects Ian all the time on what he’s doing. Once Doctor Samuels had told Ian to fix a patient up on anti-biotic’s, he had been ready to set everything up when Mickey held him back and stopped him – turned out the patient was allergic. It wasn’t the first time Mickey had corrected both Ian and Doctor Samuels, not the last time either.

“You’re lucky he’s taken a liking to you,” Dana interrupts Ian’s thoughts as she put a hand down on his shoulder, squeezing gently. “He looks out for the people he likes, I think you’ll be here for a while.”

She steps away just as Mickey is rounding the corner again.

He peeks over to look at the desk and frowns, “you even doing anything? That is the exact same page you were on five minutes ago, man.” He leans forward to look at the screen of the computer just to Ian's left, “you better not be playing Solitaire.”

Ian huffs and hunches his back, focusing on the paper work again and away from Mickey. He's hyper aware that Dana is only a couple feet away and watching him and it's making him a bit anxious to prove something. “I’m working, Mickey.”

“Uh huh,” Mickey responds and starts walking away again, “working at that pace is gonna take you for- _fucking_ -ever!”

Ian sneaks a look as Mickey disappears down the hall, biting down on his lower lip and trying to keep his face as neutral as possible. It’s a truly impossible feat.

Dana laughs lowly and mutters, “don’t have a crush, my ass.”

 

-

 

Mrs. Penelope Gunn is rich as fuck, which somehow always goes hand-in-hand with being belligerent as fuck. Ian has the pleasure of standing next to Mrs. Gunn and listening to the old lady list off all of her symptoms despite the fact that Ian has them written down on the chart in front of him. She has a persistent fever that hasn’t been diagnosed and pain in the abdominals. Ian didn’t really like Mrs. Gunn very much before, but it isn’t until Ian suggests testing for STI’s and STD’s that he really can’t stand her.

“What? Like AID’s?” She scoffs and looks away, “No, son, that can’t be it I don’t even associate with the gays.”

Ian’s a little startled at her words. He’s used to homophobic comments – he grew up on the Southside so it’s not really anything new that someone would look down on him for his sexual preference, but he’s used to it being more hostile. Hearing some yell _‘faggot’_ or seeing it spray painted in alleyways, not hearing some old lady politely telling him that she doesn’t ‘ _associate with the gays’_.

“There are other Sexual Transmitted Infection’s and Disease’s beyond AID’s,” Ian answers coolly as he closes the chart. “And I think we should test for them.” Mrs. Gunn looks like she’s about to argue again but Ian cuts her off quickly, “besides, you never know who’s gay these days. Maybe your hairdresser, barista, grocer, doctor.” He smiles tightly at Mrs. Gunn’s quickly widening eyes and turns on his heel, briskly walking out of the room.

Mickey follows behind him and Ian fears for a second that this could be a breaking point to his friendship with Mickey. Maybe it’s a stereotype but Mickey is from the Southside too, and over the months he’s worked by Mickey he’s learned that Mickey’s been to Juvie at least twice, it wouldn’t be a stretch to think Mickey liked to fag-bash in his free time.

Ian wills himself to turn around and face the music; one way or another, because Mickey knows.

It almost knocks Ian over when he sees Mickey is grinning and laughing, he wonders if maybe he didn’t hear – or if he thought Ian was joking. “What?” Ian asks cautiously.

“That was ballsy, man,” Mickey answers and claps Ian on the back. “She’s rich as hell and pissed off, that never goes over well with the Chief.”

Ian shrugs and looks down at the ground, still a little worried that Mickey’s easy reaction isn’t real. “Yeah, well, I’ll just tell him she was being homophobic. I’ll probably just get a slap on the wrist for it.”

Mickey hums and tilts his head, watching Ian carefully. He reaches forward and puts his thumb under Ian’s chin, it’s warm and the pad is rough but Ian wants to fall into the feeling. He pushes Ian’s chin up gently until his eyes are forced to meet Mickey’s.

“You good, Gallagher?” Mickey asks, his eyebrows drawn together in what Ian can only describe as concern.

Ian nods, regretting it instantly when Mickey pulls his hand back.

Mickey steps back, running a hand through his hair and mussing it up at the back. “She’s a crotchety old bitch, wouldn’t listen to anything she says.” Mickey shoots Ian one last big grin and points a thumb over his shoulder, “I’ll go get that blood for you.”

Mickey leaves, Ian feels like he’s on top of the world.

 

-

 

Ian leans against a door frame, watching as Mickey jokes around with a little girl named Susie who is getting stitches. He’s waiting for Mickey to finish his shift so they can go for a couple beers. Ian’s shift ended a half hour earlier, and Mickey’s is supposed to be ending soon. He’s almost done helping Susie though, so Ian figures he can wait. Susie has a deep gash on the top of her head that requires at least ten stitches. She had showed up at the hospital not too long ago and sat with her parents patiently in the waiting room – never shedding a single tear. Mickey had pulled some strings and gotten her a stuffed toy bear, and from then on she’d been sitting around with a toothy grin telling everyone that he was her broken head teddy bear.

It is something else watching Mickey work. He kept warning Susie every time he was about to push the needle through her skin, and she would scrunch up her nose, draw in a sharp breath each time but nothing more. He takes a little longer than normal, making sure everything is perfect before telling Susie it’s all done. She’s smiling and clinging to her teddy one second, then lunging forward and wrapping her arms as far around Mickey’s middle as she can. He gives her an awkward pat on the back and Ian laughs quietly as he watches.

It’s actually really sweet though.

Susie parents are back a couple seconds later, ready to take Susie home and both of them thanking Mickey. Mickey waits until Susie and her family have left before he flips off Ian, and rolls his eyes.

“Stop being a dick,” Mickey snaps. If Ian didn’t know Mickey as well as he does he would think Mickey’s mad.

Ian laughs again and steps into the room, “stop being cute.”

Mickey grimaces, “What did I tell you about calling me cute?”

 _Not to do it,_ Ian remembers the discussion, but the word kind of fell out of his mouth one day and Ian can’t stop thinking it. “You were cuddling with a four year old, this is a special situation.”

Mickey shakes his head and walks over to the door, mumbling, “Fuck off.”

“Aren’t we going for beers though?”

Mickey nods and rolls his eyes, “yeah, I remember, six months and all that shit.” He wanders out of the room, “I’m going change into street clothes, meet you out front.”

Ian barely notices as Mickey walks away, too focused on what he said before.

_Six months._

Has it really been that long?

The thought is quickly replaced when he realizes this is a half-anniversary of his internship that even Ian had forgotten about, but Mickey had remembered.

Well then.

 

**Author's Note:**

> [Tumblr :)](http://meganwwrites.tumblr.com)


End file.
